The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-07-14
An American antiquity.

IAN article I'D tue oOutneFs Auns0t'"sUf
Iof Nashville says: fIf the concentrit
rings ia trees are a correct index of theil
age, that mysterious structure near Man
chester, Coffee county, Tenn, called the
Old Stone Fort, is Of very ancient ori
Egin. The trees growing on the rude
stone walls that surround the old struc
ture show by their. rings fully FIVE hun.
dred years growth. These trees now be-
ing cut away, are the only witnesses to
she age Of theistone work. Will their
testimony be accepted by historians
Will the antiguarians ever find out who
built that Old Stone Fort, and for what
.purpose9 If any Investigators wish to
examine these Aold trees, they should do
so pretty soon, as they are rapidly dis.
appearing.
There is nothing in Tennessee. says
the american, or in the South, whose an
,tiauity is so mysterious and entirely be.
yonld the domain of decent speculation
as the Old Stone Fort, which is about
one mile and a half below the town Of
Manchester. -
The two prongs Of Duck River come
withinS say, 200 yards of each other and
sthe out, making territory of
perhaps 1000 acres in the forks of the
river, and below the Narrows. At the
,Narrows the fort commences by stone
wal, now covered with earth, running
from one river to the other, and there
the walls are built along the banks Of
both rivers down to point where 9 ca
/ nal had been cut from one river. On
the outside Of: this wall is q hollow, and
TO the other; there wall is made from
one river to the other, perhaps a quarter
of mile: In this hollow is the sign OF
the canal, OF cut, evidently intended to
.protecttbei fort BY both the wall and the
canal. From the upper TO the lower
wall, at places, there are high bluffs on
both rivers. Wherever this bluff-pre-
Ecipitous found, there is no wall, but
wherever there is no natural barrier the
wall is built. The entrance to the fort
was at the upper end, and the gateways
shows that the builders we're doing their
work intelligently. The entrance was
by "a narrow pass.way, with walls on
.eitherside, and Offsets so as to; prevent
the enemy on the outside from having a
direct entrance for themselves, and 80 as
to protect those on the inside from mis-
siles from the outside. The fort contains
forty seven acres, and is, or waa when
:thetwriter first saw it, heavily timbered,
many of the trees of large size growing
on top of the walls.
Col. Sam Murray, who settled there
about 1903, cut one of the trees from the
top of the wall, and found it to be shout
five hundred years old. One mile up
the river from the; fort is an immense
mound-the largest one rerhaps in the
country-making it probable the fort
was built by the mound builders. Be.
yond this nobody knows anything about
it. Col. Murray, who was man of high
intelligence, claimed to have conferred
with the Indians Of different tribes, but
none of them could give him any &C.
count of it, either by tradition or other.
wise. This fort is one of the many eyi.
dences that in this country, at some re-
mote period, there was a race of people
of more stability and intelligence than
the rowing Indians whom the first set
tiers found.